Single(k) Plan

Retirement savings are not just for big businesses

As a freelancer or sole proprietor business owner, being your own boss has its benefits: flexible hours, setting your own schedule, deducting home office expenses.

However, you do miss out on some of the benefits that traditional workers enjoy, like employer-sponsored insurance and paid time off.

You might think that list of tradeoffs includes 401k retirement savings—but it does not have to. With Single(k)® plans from Ubiquity Retirement + Savings™, you can set up a simple, low-cost solo 401k plan in minutes. Start saving for your retirement today—reducing your tax bill, while allowing your investments to grow tax-free until you are ready to retire.

What is a Single(k) plan?

They are designed specifically for freelancers, independent contractors, and other “1099 workers” who do not work for large companies with HR and Benefits departments.

With Single(k), you get all the 401k benefits that employees of large businesses enjoy, including tax-deductible retirement savings and the ability to take out loans against your savings. However, you avoid the complicated paperwork, long startup times, and compliance headaches you would face setting up a big-business 401k plan.

You can put aside thousands of dollars each year in tax-deductible retirement savings, with a plan you can quickly set up and manage on your own.

Who should consider a Single(k) plan?

Single(k) is designed for self-employed business owners. That includes:

Freelancers

Independent contractors

Sole proprietor businesses

Closely held family businesses

Anyone who receives 1099 form(s) at the end of the year for their income taxes, rather than the W-2 forms that traditional employees receive for regular payroll wages

If you operate your own business and have no employees or only part-time employees (that is, W-2 employees who work less than 1,000 hours per year), you qualify for a Single(k) retirement plan.

Select a day that works for you.

Why choose Single(k)?

Save for the future while lowering your tax bill

The Single(k) plan combines the simplicity of individual retirement savings with the flexibility and higher contribution limits of a big-business profit-sharing plan. You can lower your taxable income today while building your nest egg for when you are ready to retire.

Lower your taxes in three ways:

Traditional solo 401k contributions: Contribute to your retirement savings using “pre-tax” dollars. You do not pay taxes on the income you contribute to your solo 401k, lowering your annual tax bill. When you are ready to retire, you will pay taxes on the funds you withdraw.

Roth 401k contributions: Contribute to your retirement savings using “after-tax” dollars. With a Roth 401k, your contributions come from income on which you have already paid taxes. However, those investments can then grow tax-free, and you will not have to pay income taxes on them when you are ready to retire.

Combine both: You can make some contributions using pre-tax income and some using after-tax income. Mix and match however you choose, up to the annual contribution limit. (See below.) Note: if you want to make both traditional and Roth 401k contributions, you will need to keep them in separate brokerage accounts.

Take advantage of high contribution limits and profit-sharing

When you choose a Single(k) plan, you have the opportunity for much more tax-advantaged retirement savings each year than with a traditional individual retirement account (IRA).

For 2019, you can contribute up to $19,000, plus an additional $6,000 in “catch-up” savings if you are 50 or older. (If you are saving with a traditional IRA, the 2019 contribution limit is just $6,000, plus catch-up contributions of $1,000 for those 50 or older.)

With a Single(k) plan, you also have the option to contribute up to an additional $35,500 in what’s called “profit-sharing” contributions.

(If you imagine a big-business 401k plan, where the employer also contributes money to employees’ retirement accounts, that is the employer portion.) As a freelancer or independent contractor, you are technically both the employer and the employee—so you can max out both kinds of contributions if you choose. If you do, that is a total savings potential of up to $56,000 in tax-advantaged retirement savings this year!

Simple 401k savings you can set up in minutes

When you are ready to start saving with a Single(k) plan, you can set up your plan almost entirely online, in about 15 minutes. Unlike big-business 401k plans, you do not have to worry about plan testing, to qualify employees, or filling out mountains of paperwork. Just answer a few straightforward questions, and you are ready to go.

Once the plan is set up, you can manage your investments through Charles Schwab & Co., Inc., or any other brokerage or custodian you choose. You can run online statements and reports at any time. Moreover, if you need help submitting annual tax forms, we offer an optional service to assist with that too.

If you have questions, you can work directly with our customer support team, online or by phone, Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Pacific Time.

Flexible investment options

With a Ubiquity Single(k) plan, you can invest your retirement savings however you choose. You select the brokerage firm where you would like to keep your account. From there, you can invest in stocks, bonds, mutual funds—just like any other investment account. If you choose Charles Schwab & Co. or another custodian with online brokerage services, you can buy and sell investments in seconds with a few clicks of a mouse.

Borrow against your savings if you need to

Withdrawing funds from a 401k account before you retire is never a good idea—and carries hefty fees. However, one of the big-business benefits that Ubiquity Single(k) plans bring to freelancers and self-employed business owners is the ability to take out loans against your retirement savings if you need to.

You can borrow up to $50,000 from your vested retirement account savings. For a general-purpose loan, you can pay yourself back over a loan term up to five years. If you are borrowing to purchase a home, you can pay yourself back over 30 years.

Start saving without breaking the bank

Ubiquity Single(k) plans start as low as $215 per year, and we charge only flat fees—we never charge based on the number of assets in your account.

While Ubiquity does not charge asset-based fees, however, the funds and custodian you choose may charge for investment management services based on the amount of money in your plan. Because we work exclusively with small businesses and individuals, we only work with partners who charge the industry’s lowest asset-based fees for fund selection and investment management.